Dinner, a bath, and...

The Captain did her best, but her household skills were a work-in-progress.

She alleged the same about her chest, though by the mid twenties, you were probably about as big as you would ever get. Logic never stopped her aspirations, though, so maybe there was a chance.

In both areas, he felt guilty doing so, but Sasha couldn’t help comparing Kasumi Kasugai to the Captain. There was no contest whatsoever.

As a woman and a housewife, Kasumi was incredible. With her silken inky-black hair flowing behind her and matching black ears twitching cutely, the curvy maiden was adorned in nothing but the most traditional of wifely attire. Her white kitchen apron was pulled taught against her curves, and which barely concealed the heft of her generous cleavage and the enticing valley between bare thighs.

As she turned to show him in, her long hair would have provided at least some coverage to contrast against creamy, pale skin. If her tail wasn’t wagging, and brushing the hair aside to render her bare against his appreciative stare. She could feel his eyes burning into her hips and lower body, a generous ass suggestive of her potential for bearing children. She had just the right frame for it.

Her swaying ass, each step teasing perhaps unintentionally the delights to come, led the way into a palatial dining room.

Where, spread out before adoring red cat-eyes, was a spread of familiar foodstuffs. The staples of the village, rice and corn, were present in great measure, steaming-hot, freshly-boiled, and accompanied by a lake of butter and cranberry slices. Roast beast of some type sat as a mountain of meat at the center, and the scent of that cooked meat dominated the dining hall.

A lake of fresh home-brewed tea awaited, with an elvish glassware cup full of ice from the impressively modern steel refrigerator. Between that and the air conditioning working full time, the heat of the modern world and its fatigue slid off him. These were welcome comforts, hot and cold, any working man dreamed of.

Few could afford all of it, either, but these two ran the town’s lifeline. Though they made no affectations towards being royalty like the elders, they doubtless had a spot on the Lilisburgh council, and were doing very well for themselves.

“If I knew you were coming over today, I could have prepared something a little more exciting,” Kasumi sighed, sipping ginger tea gingerly. “We do have access to a world’s worth of fare, thanks to the ever so generous railway.”

“I’ve always preferred simple meals,” Sasha admitted to try and ease her visible nerves. It was good that he had a feast on the table to distract him from the feast standing and fidgeting over him.

I don’t fear the warrior who has mastered a thousand kicks once, but rather...

The only thing that separated this middle-class abundance from the Autumn standard was the presence of only the one wife. Monogamy was strange and temporary in the army, and from what he’d overheard from rank-and-file in the trenches, they had lots of wives or sisters or mothers to go back home to.

This feast wasn’t intended for him, just like this wasn’t his home, and Kasumi wasn’t his wife. She was meant for exactly one man in this world. Kasumi saw Sasha seated where her husband would normally go with visible anxiety, though as he attacked it with knife and fork, she could let out a sigh. There was plenty here, and two plates laid out ready as they came in, but Kasumi remained where she was, standing by the doorway, hands folded together respectfully.

“Are you not hungry?” Sasha asked, before realizing he needed to pick between chewing or speaking rather than trying both, and failing at either task. “Ahem.”

“Um,” Kasumi seemed even ashamed of that extra plate on the other side of the dining room table, which was luxuriously large, but as a consequence of its size also gave the room a distant feeling. Even if she were to sit down, they would practically have to yell. “It’s true that my husband permits me to take dinner with him, but traditionally speaking, it is not.. Proper…”

Her eyes kept flickering towards those slices of roast beast. In an age of refrigeration and railways, how many nekomata still held to the old codes anyhow?

Sasha knocked back half of the iced tea in one long gulp. “Please, don’t wait on me or anything. Just treat this like a normal dinner. Treat me like Hanzo.” He recognized the impossibility of his request, but it let her take a load off bare feet.

As expected, once she’d been given permission, she went at the food with a reckless abandon that put Sasha’s nibbling to shame. Sasha wished he was more for conversation as he watched her go. Small talk wasn’t within his grasp, and at this rate might never be.

After dinner, he tried to help with dishes, but a scandalized Kasumi took them like a whirlwind. “Never mind all this. Please, Sasha, feel free to enjoy the bath I’ve drawn up. The water should be nice and warm.”

Never one to refuse an invitation like that, Sasha found his way, with directions, through the maze of hardboard wood and hanging photo albums to the bath.

As with the Captain’s farmhouse, this place had been designed around a natural spring right in the backyard, and a high fence enclosed a stony, steamy bath. Which, like the rest of the home, featured ramps for easy accessibility. Did Hanzo drive his wheelchair right into the water like an amphibious **** craft...?

Delighting in that mental image, Sasha piled up clothes in the changing area, wrapped a towel low around his hips, and went out to sink into the waters. As promised, they were pleasantly warm, and the embrace of water up to his chest **** a sigh of relief out of him.

He was a fat, happy cat, tail wagging as he let his eyes drift closed.

Though when he heard activity in the changing room and the light flickered back on, he glanced over in time to see the sliding paper door reveal a half-naked woman. Wrapped in nothing but a bath towel that had a hard time covering those child-bearing hips and the abundance of her springy, bouncy chest, but which ironically covered more than that daring apron, Kasumi Kasugai, red as the tomatoes Sasha had helped to plant that morning, emerged before him.

“It is amazing what technology can be made resistant to water, isn’t it…? Haha… I suppose you think me prudish, getting this embarrassed to stand before a man not my husband.” Communal bathing was the norm, especially among nekomata, who always enjoyed a bath more with more participants. "Or greedy, to monopolize him when so many are lonely."

It was clear by now the Kasugai household were indeed Monogamists, but Sasha certainly had no impulse to judge them. They were still a world more normal than he could ever be.

“I don't know about matters of the heart, but you two are great for each other. I’m pretty much done, so-”

“Sasha, please don’t shame me and suggest we bathe separately.” Though she looked aside, there was steel in her tone, which would brook no disagreement. The lady insisted on stepping forward, and sinking into the waters… on the other side of the bath to him. Taking up a position not unlike the dining area.

The hot murky waters and steamy, warm wavering air separating them was nothing compared to the gulf he felt to her spirit. It was only to be expected; letting him in like this was extraordinary. She was only doing it because her husband was disabled, and adoption opportunities in a small, close-kit community were nill.

Kasumi signed up for the program, but her heart belonged to another man.

Hanzo, despite his unique challenges, was therefore one lucky cat.